Monday, September 21, 2015

Fall is here for sure. Maybe not officially until Wed. but it is in the air.

Our oldest grandson's 35th birthday is today. I remember the day he was born so well. And it doesn't seem like it was 35 years ago. I had never thought I wanted to be a grandmother until the very day our oldest son and daughter in law told us they were pregnant. I was so excited and I think I started making flannel diapers the month after we knew. They didn't have those expensive throw-a-way diapers back then! These you had to make your own to get really good flannel diapers! I am so proud of the man he has become. His parents did a wonderful job of raising him. He is a good husband, father and provider. And what more can a grandmother ask for?

I have been working on Halloween wallpapers and themes since last week and have been having so much fun. I can't say I am a big Halloween fan but I do love making the dark, Goth type wallpapers and themes. The wallpapers are more fun because you have so much more room to work on. If you have never made a theme you probably don't realize how hard it is to get any amount of graphics in such a small space. Some of my designs such as the one below:

take a long time to make because each pumpkin, leaf, grapes, etc. is put in individually so there are many layers to get the final product. And when they are up on your screen they aren't very big! But they are fun.

Brand Thunder asked me to make a Minions New Tabs theme for Chrome and I sent them in a week or so ago but they aren't on line yet. I don't use Chrome so I don't know much about these themes but apparently each new tab you open has a different "picture" page. That is why I have to make 10 to 15 different "wallpapers" for each title. So if anyone out there that reads my blog and use Chrome, let me know how you like them. It sounds very cool, but I am too old to change my browser. I love my Firefox and have such great and useful extensions for it that I won't change.

And now to football! My Seahawks have let me down the last few games. Yesterday's game was hard to watch. When they came in right after the half, they were on fire and then the fire slowly went out!

My brother and his wife are still working on a forest fire. Our local paper had an article in it yesterday about the farmers and the forest fires. They have lost so much. Cattle, fences, hay crops. I wonder if some of them will be able to keep farming. One farmer had lost 40 miles of fence. The fire moved so quickly they couldn't get all of their cattle out so lost a lot of them that way and some that are still alive have burnt hooves. If they lose their hooves they have to be put down. They actually watched some of the cattle running through flames to try to get away from the fires. On the east side of the mountains it is totally different weather than the west side. We have fires here, too, but the east side is so much hotter and dryer. Farmers have lost all of their field crops, too. So hay is going to be hard to come by for farmers on both sides of the mountains this year. That is one of the reasons I hate it so much that the 500 acre "farm" that is next to us is lying fallow so they can build houses on it. It is just wrong. They built a golf course on it already and that is a total waste of farmland! When they built it they said it would be a Scottish type course so it wouldn't need much water! Well, they water it every night in the summer so it is green! I guess they think no one will notice that the golf course is green and the grassland surrounding it is brown. They think people are dumb, I guess. And many people don't seem to care. As long as they can buy their fancy coffee on their way to work they are happy. You can probably imagine I am not a golfer! I wouldn't set foot on a golf course because it is just a big waste of land! I have probably lost a few readers on that last statement, but I have very strong feelings about it.

I just set up the last half of our property taxes to be paid! Boy, that gets harder and harder every year. Once you are on a fixed income, all the bills get harder to pay. And the government has changed how they give you a cost of living raise. It used to be based on the actual cost of living but they wanted to give the seniors a little less money so they changed the formula. So if beef goes up, they figure you won't eat beef you can switch to chicken...then if chicken goes up you can switch to something that costs less than chicken...rice perhaps! Boy, I could go on about that for another hour but I will stop!

When I started writing on this today I had no idea what to write about but once I start typing, the words keep coming. Kind of like making a theme, I guess. I usually don't know what it will be like till I get to working on one. And I have made so many it is really hard to think up titles for them.

Y'all have a super great week and enjoy the fall weather because it is just going to get colder and colder!

Saturday, September 5, 2015

Just thought I would let anyone that uses Chrome browser that some of my new themes are on now. I just finished a bunch of Minions that have a new theme for each tab you open and I believe these two new ones do also. I still use Firefox because I like it so well and am used to it, so I can't check them out!

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

We had a freaky wind and rain storm over the week end. It was something else! It started Sat. morning. We were one of the lucky ones and didn't lose power, but the majority of the county lost power at one time or other. Some still don't have any 4 days later. We were headed south for our great grandson's first football game. We went with our son and his wife so we didn't have to drive. We could see power poles broken, lines down and tree limbs everywhere. We had been so lucky with the best summer weather in history and then hit with this storm. We had the warmest August on record and the wettest! The week end storm brought the wet part! I so dread the cold winter weather!

The game was really fun to watch but the other team's boys were so big. I can't believe that 10 year old boys can get that large! He had fun, we had fun so that was all that counts. It brought back so many memories of going to our son's and grandson's football games.

The radio station I usually listen to was off the air Sunday morning because they lost power and 4 days later, they still aren't on! So I listened to the news on another local station that morning and just happened to tune in when they were talking about the Urban Growth Areas for the City being on the City Council agenda Mon. night. It was just a wierd coincidence that I heard it or we would never have known it was going to happen. We went to the meeting and they voted to leave our neighborhood out of the planning. But there was a few tense moments for us when they were going through their discussion before they voted. The farm the developer wants to build houses in will be recommended to be in a Reserve Area for future growth. I wish they had just left that out for now, but we won our battle! The City's recommendation will now go to the County and we will have to start all over since the County is the Final Decision Maker. But I can't see any reason for them putting us back into the planning at this point. I know sometime in the future it will happen, but I just hope I don't live to see it.

There hasn't been a lot happening on the Persona theme front lately. I don't really know why unless people are on vacation! I don't go on vacation so I keep plugging away.

I haven't decided whether to download Windows 10 or not. I have Windows 7 and love it. I am aprehensive about changing because I hate being slowed down by having to learn how to do something new. So for now I think I will keep my 7!

We will be keeping our 5 year old great grandson for the Labor Day weekend. So that should be fun. And it sounds like the weather is going to get nice by then. "Fingers crossed!"

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(A little about me)

I once said I never wanted a computer, BUT...one of my grandson's is in the IT Department at WWU and installed Firefox when he built my desktop computer. I really like it and won't use any other browser now. It is safe, fast and has tons of extensions to make it easy for your browsing. One of the add ons they have available are themes which they used to call Personas. They had been called Personas for several years and became very popular, but someone at Mozilla got the bright idea to change the name. Whatever you want to call them they are still a fun quick way to make your browser personal. You can find my Persona/Theme designs at:https://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/gallery/Designer/MaDonna

I make desktop wallpaper designs to match many of my themes, which you can use as background themes for GMail. You can also use them as a wallpaper for your cell phone. You can find my desktop wallpaper designs at: http://my.desktopnexus.com/MaDonnas/uploads/

I have been making theme designs for my own personal Firefox ever since it was installed. Then it was opened so you could submit designs for approval in 2008. My design called Sunset Over Water had over a million and a half people using it at one time. It is from a photo I took off Chuckanut Drive on our way home from a wedding.

I have always been interested in design. When I was a little girl I designed clothing for my paper dolls. Then designed and made clothes for my regular dolls. I made most of my own clothing in high school. When I was older I designed, sewed and made our 3 kids clothing. When they got married and started having babies I made tons of clothes for our 7 grand kids. I decided to sell some of my designs. Fibromyalgia decided to put a stop to that. Sewing for hours a day was just too much.

I am a bit of an over-achiever and when I start something, I don't know when to quit! I have done a little bit of sewing for our great grand kids, but I know I have a limit and when to stop.

I used to design and make jewelry and sold at bazaars which was a lot of fun.

I work on themes and desktop wallpaper designs almost every day and have enjoyed hearing from people all over the world.

I was asked to design themes for Brand Thunder. They have theme designs for people that use Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari and also Firefox. In 2012 I won a Nexus 7 tablet on a pop culture contest they held. They have changed their format so I don't make designs for them anymore.

I now use Photoshop Elements to make my designs. It is a very complicated program to use, especially at my age of almost 80.

Thank you all for your comments and using my designs. I will keep making them as long as I can and people enjoy using them.

A BIT MORE!

I love nature and the beauty of the Pacific Northwest, the animals
that roam our forests and back yards. That is the reason most of my
designs are nature based. I love going up into the mountains with my
husband of 61 years. He knows the mountains well and can take me places
where I can take photos I can use for both Persona designs and
wallpapers. It is getting harder and harder for me to take really good scenic shots, though, because of my age!

We have 3 grown children, 6 grandsons, 1 granddaughter, 4 great
grandsons and 1 great granddaughter. My family is the most important part of my life. I don't
get to see my brother or sister as much as I would like as we all live
in different states and I am not a traveler. My family moved a lot when I
was growing up and I pretty much like to just stay put now.

I loved riding dirt bikes and ATV's. I used to ride my Yamaha dirt bike in poker runs, enduro's and motocross and have a lot of trophies to show for it. And one bad knee after two surgeries! I rode dirt bikes before they had motocross gear for women. Had to buy gear for boys! But my most favorite thing was riding my Kawasaki 454 LTD road bike. My husband had a 454, too and we would go on cross country trips, especially to Winthrop, WA. My last year to ride was when I was 71 years old and it was hard to give up but I knew my strength wasn't up to it anymore. Summer isn't quite as much fun now because I can't ride, but I have so many wonderful memories.

I was born and raised a farm girl. In the early 1990's my husband and I started a group to protect the 500+ acre ranch close to us. A Japanese company had purchased it and wanted to build a development with over 2000 houses. Over 600 people from the community joined our group and we were successful in stopping the development. But instead of farming it like it should be, they built a golf course! We still do all we can to help preserve the farm land.

I have been doing a bit of freelance work, such as designing book covers, business cards, calenders, etc. It all keeps me very, very busy. Plus getting older it doesn't get any easier.